Albany Prize winner honored with Nobel

For 2nd time this week, honoree a dual winner, this time in chemistry

Staff and wire reports

Published
10:07 pm EDT, Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, right, of Duke University, arrives at his office at Duke to congratulations on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, the day Lefkowitz heard he had won the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka of Stanford University School of Medicine won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for studies of protein receptors that let body cells sense and respond to outside signals like danger or the flavor of food. Such studies are key for developing better drugs. (AP Photo//Ted Richardson) less

Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, right, of Duke University, arrives at his office at Duke to congratulations on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, the day Lefkowitz heard he had won the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Lefkowitz and ... more

Photo: Ted Richardson

Photo: Ted Richardson

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Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, right, of Duke University, arrives at his office at Duke to congratulations on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, the day Lefkowitz heard he had won the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka of Stanford University School of Medicine won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for studies of protein receptors that let body cells sense and respond to outside signals like danger or the flavor of food. Such studies are key for developing better drugs. (AP Photo//Ted Richardson) less

Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, right, of Duke University, arrives at his office at Duke to congratulations on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012, the day Lefkowitz heard he had won the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Lefkowitz and ... more

Photo: Ted Richardson

Albany Prize winner honored with Nobel

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STOCKHOLM — For the second time this week, an Albany Prize winner was honored with a Nobel Prize. On Wednesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences named Brian Kobilka and Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, who received the Albany Prize in 2007, the winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their studies of protein receptors that let body cells sense and respond to outside signals like danger or the flavor of food.

The prize committee said the pair made groundbreaking discoveries, mainly in the 1980s, on an important family of receptors known as G-protein-coupled receptors. About half of all medications act on these receptors, including beta blockers and antihistamines, so learning about them will help scientists create better drugs.

Earlier this week, stem-cell pioneer Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan was named one of two winners of this year's Nobel Prize in medicine. Yamanaka won the Albany Prize last year.

The $500,000 Albany Prize is the largest award in medicine and science in the United States. In total, 21 researchers have been recipients of the award since its inception in 2001.

"We are proud to be among those who have honored Dr. Lefkowitz for his transformational work, and we join in celebrating his well-deserved honors," said James J. Barba, president and CEO of Albany Medical Center and chairman of the Albany Prize National Selection Committee. "His work has had profound impact on the development of new medications for so many people."

The human body has about 1,000 kinds of the protein receptors discovered by Lefkowitz and Kobilka. The structures sit on the surface of cells and allow the body to respond to a wide variety of chemical signals, like adrenaline. Some receptors are in the nose, tongue and eyes, and let us sense smells, tastes and light.

"They work as a gateway to the cell," Lefkowitz told a news conference in Stockholm by phone. "As a result they are crucial ... to regulate almost every known physiological process with humans."

Lefkowitz said he was fast asleep when the Nobel committee called, but he didn't hear it because he was wearing earplugs. So his wife picked up the phone.

"She said, 'There's a call here for you from Stockholm,' " Lefkowitz told The Associated Press. "I knew they ain't calling to find out what the weather is like in Durham today."

He said he didn't have an "inkling" that he was being considered. "Initially, I expected I'd have this huge burst of excitement. But I didn't. I was comfortably numb," Lefkowitz said.

Kobilka said he found out about 2:30 a.m., after the Nobel committee called his home twice. He said he didn't get to the phone the first time, but that when he picked up the second time, he spoke to five members of the committee.

"They passed the phone around and congratulated me," Kobilka told AP. "I guess they do that so you actually believe them. When one person calls you, it can be a joke, but when five people with convincing Swedish accents call you, then it isn't a joke."

He said he would put his half of the 8 million kronor ($1.2 million) award toward retirement or "pass it on to my kids."

The academy said it was long a mystery how cells interact with their environment and adapt to new situations, such as when they react to adrenaline by increasing blood pressure and making the heart beat faster.

Scientists suspected that cell surfaces had some type of receptor for hormones.

Using radioactivity, Lefkowitz managed to unveil receptors including the receptor for adrenaline, and started to understand how it works. Kobilka and his team realized that there is a whole family of receptors that look alike — a family that is now called G-protein-coupled receptors.

In 2011, Kobilka achieved another breakthrough when his team captured an image of the receptor for adrenaline at the moment when it is activated by a hormone and sends a signal into the cell. The academy called the image "a molecular masterpiece."

"They both have made great contributions to our understanding of health and disease," Shakhashiri said. "This is going to help us a great deal to develop new pharmaceuticals, new medicines for combating disease."

Drugs such as beta blockers, antihistamines and various psychiatric medicines have been around for some time, but before Lefkowitz and Kobilka's discoveries, their impact on the human body wasn't fully understood, said Sven Lidin, chairman of the prize committee.